Module 5 LS 5623 Bodies from the Ice: Melting Glaciers and the Recovery of the Past

Book cover image from Amazon.com

BODIES FROM THE ICE: MELTING GLACIERS AND THE RECOVERY OF THE PAST
1. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Deem, James M. 2008. BODIES FROM THE ICE: MELTING GLACIERS AND THE RECOVERY OF THE PAST. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 9780618800452.

2. BOOK SUMMARY
Imagine that you have reached the summit of a glacial mountain and are triumphantly climbing down only to notice what looks like trash from other climbers, but upon closer inspection you discover human remains. The mummified remains are studied and discovered to be thousands of years old.

As the glaciers in the world melt, more and more of the terrain is being exposed along with artifacts and remains of various missing people from long ago. Deem takes the reader through the Alps to a North American glacier, where different human bodies have been found. There is even a chapter on the Andes where may frozen children have been found, used in sacrificial ceremonies to "appease their gods".The final part of this informational book is a plea to save the findings of the past by thinking about the future of our environment.

3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Each page is a visual feast for the eyes because “The book is full of colorful photographs and paintings of the various glaciers and the bodies and artifacts buried in them, many of which take up over half a page, letting the reader experience the beauty of glaciers as and the wonders they have entombed”(Children’s Literature). The text is not just fact after fact and glacier after glacier, but the reader is drawn in as each discovery is explained and given the human touch to it. The explanation of how the glaciers form and move: “Deem discusses how glaciers operate like “a giant conveyor belt—essentially a moving river of ice.” With force and power, glaciers churn up, and turn up, mountain debris. This debris sometimes includes human remains that offer amazing insights into the past” (Children’s Literature).

While the some of the visuals could be disturbing “Moving quickly beyond the sensationalism of each gruesome discovery, Deem carefully considers the terrain, ice formations, and glacial movement that variously entrap and preserve, or displace and dismember human remains”( The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books).
While many of the pages contained sidebars of extra information, one of the most significant occurred near the end of the book. The reader is give “Personal Ways to Help the Environment”. The book ends with a list of glaciers to visit, suggested websites, acknowledgements and bibliography, illustration credits, and an index.

The seven chapters divide the book but also make it easy for the reader to choose where he/she would like to start. I began with “Chapter 4: Frozen Children of the Andes”.

4. AWARDS AND HONORS
2008 Kirkus Best children's Books
2009 National Science Teacher Association's Outstanding Trade Books for Students K-12
2009 Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal Honor Book

5. REVIEW EXCERPTS
From Booklist: "There are books about melting glaciers and books about frozen bodies, but this attractive offering combines the topics in a way that will intrigue readers."

From Kirkus Reviews: "An intriguing read ... with a bonus environmental message."

Module 5 LS 5623 We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball

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WE ARE THE SHIP: THE STORY OF NEGRO LEAGUE BASEBALL
1. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Nelson, Kadir. 2008. WE ARE THE SHIP: THE STORY OF NEGRO LEAGUE BASEBALL. New York: Jump at the Sun/Hyperion. ISBN 9780786808328.

2. BOOK SUMMARY
In the late 1800’s Negro baseball players were unable to play on professional baseball teams. This came from a secret meeting in which a “gentleman’s agreement” was made forcing all Negro players off of teams and not hiring any more. On February 20, 1920 Rube Foster met with all of the other owners of black baseball teams in the Midwest, and started the Negro National League. Rube said, “We are the ship, all else the sea.”

Nelson introduces us to many of the famous players in the league and explains the conditions that the players endured, “Try sleeping in a car with your knees to your chest, crammed with eight other guys, only to play a game the next day.” The players were often discriminated against and couldn’t even eat in the restaurants in some of the towns they played. Even during the Depression, there was baseball.
Some of the players would go to Cuba to train, and possibly try to stay since the players weren’t discriminated against in Latin America. The heat and absolute perfection demanded of them sent many of them back to the US to continue to play for the Negro leagues.

The Negro Leagues began to become obsolete when some of their players crossed to play in the Major League. “If a colored boy can make it on Okinawa and Guadalcanal … he can make it in baseball. Jackie Robinson was the first player to cross, and in 1948 the Negro League ended.

3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS
What caught my attention first with this book were the amazing illustrations. “Each turn of the page provides a visual treat for the reader, whether it is a portrait of a player, or an action shot such as that of Jackie Robinson stealing home “(Children’s Literature). The images were so realistic and were just as powerful as his illustrations in Henry’s Freedom Box.

The book was told from the view point of every man. In Nelson’s Author’s Notes at the end of the book he gives his reasoning for choosing this way to tell the story, “I chose to present the voice of the narrator as a collective voice, the voice of every player, the voice of we…it became clear that hearing the story of Negro League baseball directly from those who experienced it firsthand made it more real, more accessible.”

Another part of this book’s appeal is that the each chapter has its own title, but instead of being given just a number, it is called a certain inning. For example, the first chapter is called “1st Inning: Beginnings”. The last chapter is called “Extra Innings: The End of the Negro Leagues”.

The book ends with a listing of all the members of the Negro Leagues who made it to the Major Leagues and those who are in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. These two lists come before the Bibliography, Filmography, End Notes for each chapter, and Index.

4. AWARDS AND HONORS
2008 Horn Book Fanfare
2008 Kirkus Best Children's Books
2008 Publisher's Weekly Best Children's Books
2008 School Library Journal Best Books
2009 Booklist's Top 10 Black History Books for Youth
2009 Author Winner of the Corretta Scott King Book Award
2008 Winner New York times Best Illustrated Children's Book's of the Year
2009 Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children Honorable Mention
2009 Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal Winner
2008 Society of Illustrators' Award Silver Medal

5. REVIEW EXCERPTS
From Booklist: "The stories and artwork are a tribute to the spirit of the Negro Leaguers, who were much more than also-rans and deserve a more prominent place on baseball’s history shelves. For students and fans (and those even older than the suggested grade level), this is the book to accomplish just that."

From Kirkus Review's: "Along with being absolutely riveted by the art, readers will come away with a good picture of the Negro Leaguers' distinctive style of play, as well as an idea of how their excellence challenged the racial attitudes of both their sport and their times."

Module 5 LS 5623 The Wednesday Wars

Book cover image from Amazon.com

THE WEDNESDAY WARS
1. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Schmidt, Gary D. 2007. THE WEDNESDAY WARS. New York: Clarion Books. ISBN 9780618724833.

2. PLOT SUMMARY
Holling Hoodhood lived in what his father called the perfect house right in the middle of the town. It was not to the north where all the residents went to temple or to the south, were the residents attended mass, but in the middle, where Holling attended the Presbyterian Church and had a pastor who was “old enough to have known Moses” and “could have called Isaiah a personal friend”. Holling is the only student in his seventh grade class who doesn’t have religious instruction on Wednesday afternoon, so he and his teacher spend this time together. Mrs. Baker uses this time to “punish” him by having him learn Shakespeare.

Through the year, the Shakespeare lessons help Holling deal with the turmoil going on around him: the Vietnam War, cream puffs and rats, bullies (especially Doug Swieteck’s brother), first love, racism, track, and these are the issues he contends with at school. While at home, he deals with a father who is more concerned about business contracts and “being a candidate for the Chamber of Commerce Businessman of 1967” than he is about the well being of his twelve year old son and sixteen year old “flower child” daughter. Through it all, Holling begins to grow into his future persona, to “become a man who brought peace and wisdom to his world because he knew about war and folly… he loved greatly because he had seen what lost love is. And …he came to know, too, that he was loved greatly”.


3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Holling Hoodhood narrates THE WEDNESDAY WARS and, as Booklist so eloquently puts it, “Holling’s unwavering, distinctive voice offers a gentle, hopeful, moving story of a boy who, with the right help, learns to stretch beyond the limitations of his family, his violent times, and his fear, as he leaps into his future with his eyes and his heart wide open.” Holling is a believable narrator as he goes through the unrest of the time…the Vietnam War, the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy, racial protests, and flower children.

One could be overwhelmed by all that is taking place historically, but the character of Holling is so likeable that the reader becomes caught up in his everyday life. “There is a lot going on in this novel not all related to the politics of the turbulent 1960s. The assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, and the unpopular Vietnam War play a part in Holling's seventh grade year but so do two rats, Sycorax and Calliban, with their clacking yellow teeth; a part as Ariel in yellow tights; a track team; bullying and racism; a camping trip; and disappointment in a first love (VOYA).” Schmidt brings 1967 alive, but what truly lingers when the book is over is the characterization of Holling Hoodhood and his remarkable teacher, Mrs. Baker.


4. AWARDS AND HONORS
2008 John Newbery Medal Honnor Book
2007 Washington Post Best Books for Young People
2007 Booklist Editor's Choice Books for Youth
2008 Booklist's Top 10 Historical Fiction for Youth
2008 YALSA Best Books for Young Adults

5. REVIEW EXCERPTS
From Children's Literature: "This story interweaves the issues of the period with grace and power, resulting in historical fiction both entertaining and endearing."

From VOYA: "This novel is funny, warm, sad, and touching all at the same time."

Module 4 LS 5623 The Dead & the Gone

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THE DEAD AND THE GONE
1. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Pfeffer, Susan Beth. 2008. THE DEAD & THE GONE. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 9780547258553.

2. PLOT SUMMARY
Alex Morales is an average seventeen year old boy. As he lives in New York City with his Puerto Rican family, he values his faith, his family, and ‘a full scholarship to Georgetown and summer internships with United States senators. He wanted to be the first president of the United States of Puerto Rican descent.” When an asteroid hits the moon and knocks it closer to Earth, Alex’s dreams change...now he wants “to wake to hear Papi cursing him out and Mami defending him. He wanted the moon back where it belonged and pessimistic scientists to crawl under rocks. More than anything, he wanted to know his parents were safe.” During the seven month span of the book, Alex bears witness to tsunamis, floods, rising tides, volcanic ash blocking out the sun, earthquakes, Yankee Stadium becoming a morgue, and much despair. He struggles to keep his sisters alive and to be among the living, not the dead or the gone.

3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Susan Pfeffer creates a science fiction novel which soon draws on dystopian aspects. An asteroid hitting the moon and knocking it off course is what causes the action in the novel, but it is how the characters interact with themselves and each other that kept this reader involved and kept this book from being just another sci-fi tale. Because the author labeled each chapter as a date without a year, we know that the story covers seven months. The language and situations used give it a modern day feel.

Seventeen year old Alex Morales is the protagonist. While he struggles with keeping his sisters in line, his biggest problem is what the world has become with the moon being off track. During one portion of the novel, his supplies dealer tries to trade him safe passage for him and his sister, Brie, by using his younger sister as the bartering item.

Booklist declares “Religion is one of the strong threads running through the novel.” This is evident in the way that Alex continues to pray during all that is going on “As long as he prayed, he didn’t have to think. He didn’t have to remember”. He sends his sister, Bri, to a convent in the country, he goes to a private catholic school, and he and his sisters frequently pray to Madre Santisiana.


4. AWARDS AND HONORS
2008 Cybil Award Finalist
2009 Texas Lone Star Reading List

5. REVIEW EXCERPTS
From Booklist:"The story’s power, as in the companion book, comes from readers’ ability to picture themselves in a similiar situation; everything Pfeffer writes about seems wrenchingly plausible."

From Kirkus: "As in the previous novel, Life as We Knew It, realistically bone-chilling despair and death join with the larger question of how the haves and have-nots of a major metropolitan city will ultimately survive in an increasingly lawless, largely deserted urban wasteland. Incredibly engaging."

Module 4 LS 5623 Among the Imposters

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AMONG THE IMPOSTERS
1. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Haddix, Margaret. 2002. AMONG THE IMPOSTERS. New York, NY: Aladdin Paperbacks. ISBN 0689839081

2. PLOT SUMMARY
“It’s not reform school or anything”. As these words are spoken to Luke Garner he realizes that they carry a deeper meaning for him. “The word stuck in Luke’s brain…they were going to re-form him. They were going to take a Luke and make him a Lee”. Luke’s identity is changed to that of Lee Garner. As he starts his new life at Hendrick’s School for Boys, he thinks he is leaving behind his life of being an illegal third child, hidden from the outside world by his loving parents. As he begins his life at a boy’s boarding school, he struggles to “blend in”. What Luke discovers is that all of the students at Hendrick’s carry the same secret, and when the true imposters are revealed, Luke’s life, and those of his fellow barons, are in danger.

3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Haddix has created a dystopia novel with a young protangonist in Luke while supplying readers with enough unanswered questions to require another novel in this series. According to Kirkus Review, “Thought-provoking issues, such as a government with too much power, raised in the first novel, as well as Luke's determination to change the world, carry on throughout this impressive sequel”.

By using the Population Police, Haddix creates a scenario almost too horrific to comprehend…a country in which third children born in a family are illegal and must be destroyed. Interestingly enough, the whole school Luke is involved in, is filled with wealthy families’ third children, called Barons. This play between the wealthy and poor classes and the intrusive nature of the Populaton Police creates this novel’s dystopian effect.

During the storyline we watch Luke “grow from a participant to a leader in this milieu, surprising himself with his own solutions “(Bulletin of Center for Children’s Books). Luke is heroic as he finds the solution to his dream--helping other third children like himself to live a more meaningful life.


4. REVIEW EXCERPTS
From Booklist: "Luke and his experiences are believable in the appealing, simple futuristic story."

From Kirkus: "Thought-provoking issues, such as a government with too much power, raised in the first novel, as well as Luke's determination to change the world, carry on throughout this impressive sequel. In the end, Haddix leaves readers longing for more about Luke Garner."

Module 4 LS 5323 Mockingjay

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MOCKINGJAY
1. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Collins, Suzanne. 2010. MOCKINGJAY. New York: Scholastic Press. ISBN 9780439023511

2. PLOT SUMMARY
"My name is Katniss Everdee. I am seventeen years old. My home is District 12. I was in the Hunger Games. I escaped. The Capitol hates me.” In surviving the Hunger Games, Katniss becomes a reluctant pawn for the rebel forces. She has witnessed her childhood friend beaten, her partner in the games supposedly obliterated, and her beloved home destroyed along with ninety percent of District 12’s population. “I have no confidence that my becoming the mockingjay will benefit those who are trying to bring it down. How can I help the districts when every time I make a move, it results in suffering and loss of life?” Katniss does become the Mockingjay and symbolizes hope for those who have been oppressed by the government. When she realizes her dream to do away with the evil President Snow, the truth influences her final act as the Mockingjay. After those in charge of the revolution decide that a slaughtering of children in future hunger games will continue, Katniss comes to her own realization, “Because something is significantly wrong with a creature that sacrifices its children’s lives to settle its differences…The truth is, it benefits no one to live in a world where these things happen.”

3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS
All of the books I reviewed for Module four were either companion books (THE DEAD & THE GONE), next in the series (AMONG THE IMPOSTORS) or concluding books in a series (MOCKINGJAY). MOCKINGJAY has been the hardest of the three to analyze because, in my opinion, it relies so much on the other two books in its trilogy. Trying to look at it as a stand alone piece was ineffective for me. This may be because when the Hunger Games trilogy was started, Suzanne Collins knew she would be writing three books. I learned this from her at the 2010 TLA Conference during her Hunger Games Session.

The obvious elements of this novel to Fantasy are the creation of the Mockingjay creature. The types of air crafts and special effects (the way the skin was transplanted after Katniss and Peeta were burned) also lend to this element. The governments involvement in the destruction of the different Districts, the Hunger Games themselves, and the obvious controlling of people (such as the scheduling of each inhabitant of District 13) brings in the dystopian effect of this novel.

Katniss battles herself through part of the novel, but the real antagonist of the novel is not so much President Snow, but the abuse of power associated with some who are in control of others, especially in government.


4. REVIEW EXCERPTS
From Booklist: "The highly anticipated conclusion to the Hunger Games trilogy does not disappoint. If anything, it may give readers more than they bargained for: in action, in love, and in grief."

From The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books: "Readers will not be disappointed by the series conclusion, as the superb characterizations and unending plot twists that were hallmarks of the previous books are all here, but they may be surprised by Collins’ bleak—albeit accurate—depiction of war. Neither the Capitol nor the rebels can claim innocence as their separate quests for power continue to rack up the body count and destroy Katniss’ world. The bittersweet ending is at once heartbreaking and appropriate, as it stays true to both the determination of Katniss and the brutality of the Games."